Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.”

Thanks for the responses over the past few weeks with regard to these articles/lessons. Writing these lessons challenge me as I walk with the Lord. They force me to take stock of how I love, how I live and how I serve. Thanks for the encouraging emails and for the ones that make me study harder as well.

Over the past few weeks, we have explored the above verse from Proverbs. This verse from Proverbs 29:18, as we have shown, is not a verse about ‘casting a vision,’ or about setting goals, or about anything other than the proper teaching of God’s word. You may say, Sean, you are just repeating this. I am because it has been misused over and over again; it has been taken out of the context that God intended, and that can be dangerous.

People don’t perish because of a lack of goals, or a lack of ambition or lack of something to focus on. They perish because the Word of God is not clearly and skillfully taught. We also live in a time when even in the Lord’s churches there is a lack of disciplined living. In casting off what many feel is the religious legalism of the very conservative churches, we have swung the other way; and now sin is okay. We no longer err on the side of caution, but push the envelope as to what is acceptable.

Let me offer a sad reality of what can happen when people do not have a clear, doctrinally sound and skilled revelation of the word of God. There is a large ‘church’ here in Mississauga, the city where I pastor; it runs in the thousands. Just yesterday, I was saddened to learn from transcripts of the pastor’s own words, both in lectures at seminaries and from sermons at the church, that he deems the blood sacrifice of our Lord Jesus as unnecessary for salvation. He deems that a loving God cannot be loving if death and bloodshed are needed for redemption. He completely denies the substitutionary death of Jesus for our sins.

How many people sit in this church each week, have been there for years, and yet have never heard the true Gospel? They are involved, may be teachers and leaders, but they have never been saved. Why would any seminaries have this man to lecture to their students? It is because of a lack of the proper revelation of God’s word, both on the side of the school and the students. So, let us put this in the light of the truth. It is God himself who performed the first blood sacrifice; He set the example of how our sins are covered. We see this in Genesis 3:21,

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

Adam had tried to cover their sinful shame with the leaves of a fig tree, but what was required to cover their shame and nakedness were skins, not leaves. The only way to get skins from an animal is to kill it. Something died to cover our sin (Hebrews 9:22). How many people who attend this ‘church’ will meet Jesus one day and hear the words “I never knew you.”

We paired our look at Proverbs 29:18 with 2 Timothy 3: 16-17,

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

We showed that proper revelation of God’s word contains three very important elements: doctrine (the fundamental and eternal principles of the Scriptures), reproof, and correction. (Reproof is defined as “an expression of blame or disapproval.” Correction is defined as “a change that rectifies an error or an inaccuracy.” Thus, reproof is pointing out sin and wrong; correction is then doing it the right way). And when doctrine and reproof take hold, we are then prepared to do good works.

Today, we will begin to look at the process of how we go about doing good works. We are not doing these good works to be saved, but as evidence that God is actively working in us to make the right choices and be disciplined in the way that we live amongst the lost. To be able to do that, we will need to look carefully at two very familiar verses and apply them, through the power of the Holy Spirit to our lives. Let us look at Romans 12: 1-2:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

The great apostle Paul, in chapter 7 of Romans, tells us of the fight that happens between the Spirit of God in us and the flesh that is in its death throes. He is almost at the point of despair, and he calls out to the Lord for help. In chapter 8 we learn that we are no longer under condemnation (8:1) and that nothing can separate us from God’s love (8:38-39). In chapters 9-10 he takes off on a bit of a tangent, talking about his fellow Israelites; and in chapter 12 he jumps right in all the way along, led by the Holy Spirit; and he is pleading with us, “I beseech you.” What is it that he is beseeching us to do? The answer is found in verse 1, “that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.”

God no longer needs or wants dead offerings anymore. What He wants are people who are dead to self and the cares of this world. People who put Him first above and beyond everything. People who seek His pleasure in all things first and not their own. We are commanded to do this all the way through the Bible.

Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Joshua 24:15, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Psalm 143:10, “Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”

Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Mark 8:35, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

Matthew 16:24-25, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'”

Luke 9:23, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

I can go on and on for pages and pages, but the point is this: If you and I are to take the proper teaching of doctrine, if we are to see the fruit of proper reproof and correction in the bearing of ‘good work,’ the first step is to surrender ourselves to the Lord. Lose all sense of self and any purpose other than His. What is God’s purpose for me? No matter what it costs? No matter what I lose, no matter where it goes, no matter who goes with me, I must serve Him and Him alone. I surrender my hopes, dreams, ambitions and desires to one simple goal: what does God want? This decision will frame the way you think about everything that happens after that. Every event will simply be judged by is this God’s will or not? If it is, then it is okay no matter the outcome.

Many churches today have people who come only to see what God can give them: health, wealth and prosperity. But in truth, the path to growth in Jesus, the path to maturity is how much we can give and/or give up for Him, His causes and His Kingdom. Who will be wholly invested like Jesus was? He was wholly invested right down to His beaten body and shed blood. What about you and me? Are we sacrifices for and to Him? If not, what are we doing with the salvation that Jesus bought for us?

Look at what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20: “The life I now live is by faith in Jesus, who gave Himself up for me.” Go and read once again Matthew 26:36-46 and see that Jesus prayed 3 times to let this cup pass; but not my will, Father, yours be done. Jesus, the man, understood the anguish and the pain He was about to suffer – but not my will, Father, yours be done. As living sacrifices, we must be willing to suffer as needed to self so that Jesus can produce in us the good works that please Him.

These are the last days; and soon, maybe sooner than you think, we will all meet Jesus face to face and give an account of our lives after salvation (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). How will our judgments go, oh Lord? Let me submitted to your will only and not mine. What about you?

“So we aspire to please Him, whether we are here in this body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

 

Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.”

Once again thanks for the emails that you send. Some are encouraging and others not so, and that is okay. The mere fact the people are reading these articles is enough for me. Plus, those that are not encouraging force me to be more deliberate in my study and in my defense of what is true. George Orwell said this, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Jesus put it this way in John 3:19-20:

“And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

As we approach the Last Days, the prevalence of lies will grow and grow as the world system prepares the masses for the Anti-Christ to appear. Remember that there will be strong deception once the Lord’s churches are taken out of the way, and then God will send strong delusions that the people should believe THE LIE. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 we see this dire warning:

“¹⁰ and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. ¹¹ For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, ¹² in order that judgment will come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.”

Notice in verse 10 that these who refused to love truth have every wicked deception directed against them. They reject the very truth that will save them; and, ultimately, they will be allowed to believe all the lies of the world system and then, in particular, THE LIE (see verse 11), whatever that lie will be about the missing billions of people that have been suddenly taken out of this world by God. This is why it is so important that the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:25 that we need to assemble together more and more as we see the last days approaching. While we are together, we are to encourage each other; and, more importantly, we are to spend time in the truth of the Bible. Without it and its truths, we too could fall prey to the lies of the system around us.

Let me offer one lie that is coming to a head as an example, and then we will move on to the actual lesson. The world keeps telling us that men and women are the same. So, when men who identify as women want to compete in women’s sports, they completely dominate. Right now, trans-men are dominating women’s athletics, cycling, wrestling, weightlifting, and on we can go. It is clear to the real women that the men are stronger, faster and have more endurance. Let me offer an example, according to Google:

The fastest women’s mile runner is Sifan Hassan who recently set the world record with a time of 4 mins 12 seconds; however, the fastest man is Hicham El Guerrouj with a time of 3 mins 43 seconds (29 seconds faster). Just a week or so ago, a man broke the 2-hour mark on a marathon. Men are bigger, stronger, faster, often have more endurance, different muscle structure, different fat contents in the body, and on and on we can go. This is the truth; God made us that way. But the Lies of the left are going to destroy women’s sports because no one wants to admit the truth.

Sadly, too many Christians have fallen into the lies because we do not spend enough time in the truth. Christians are not called to be social justice warriors; we are called to manage the planet, but only God can save it. We have two jobs: love God wholeheartedly and then love your neighbour. This is all done so that people can see Jesus more and more and come to Him for salvation.

Now to the actual lesson for today. Over the past few weeks, we have looked at another verse in conjunction with our theme verse; that is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

In the first two lessons, we looked at the importance of doctrine, and we mentioned things like the doctrine of Creation: God made us in His image. The doctrine of Salvation: Jesus is the only way to be saved. As we mentioned earlier, there is a doctrine that God made men and women differently, and there is no amount of social engineering that will change the genetics that God put in place. Men cannot be women, and women cannot be men. It is that simple; no matter how many surgeries they have, or hormones they take, they cannot change the DNA. This is a doctrine.

In the last lesson, we spoke about reproof and correction. Reproof is defined as “an expression of blame or disapproval.” Correction is defined as “a change that rectifies an error or an inaccuracy.” Thus, reproof is pointing out sin and wrong; correction is then doing it the right way. We gave an example of this reproof and correction from Ephesians 4:28:

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

Here Paul highlights the improper behavior: stealing, and offers a correction: go and work. The Bible is filled with these; take the time to read the book of Proverbs.

Now we will look at the final part of the verse from 2 Timothy. Before we do, let us recap the theme verse from Proverbs 29:18: People need proper revelation, the proper teaching and exposition of the word of God to help them to be restrained in evil. Simply put, the more a society hears the teachings of the word of God, the less evil the people will be. Now you can understand why there is such a push to remove the Bible from the schools, from the public in general, and to remove the Ten Commandments from view, to remove in God we trust from sight. To make the Bible out to be an obsolete book that is filled with racism and violence, a book to be avoided not embraced.

It is very hard to promote sin and evil if the majority of the people know the Bible. It is hard to promote socialism, for instance, when the Bible makes the idea of personal ownership of things like land and livestock a man’s right. It is very hard to promote paying people not to work when the Bible says a man who does not work should not eat. It is very hard to promote abortions when the Bible addresses babies in the womb as people with a purpose from God (read Jeremiah 1). We also see that true happiness comes from obeying God’s laws; yes, by living under God’s rules.

The Bible, when properly taught, provides us with foundational truths called doctrines; it provides us with an understanding of what is wrong and tells us what is right. Once these two parts are in place, we are then equipped to do “good works.” Equipped to live righteously. One cannot live righteously without proper doctrine and without Godly reproof and correction. Good works is the fruit of the two.

Now let us first deal with the Lie of the Left: They say we are all good. Man, they say, is intrinsically good and may at times make a few mistakes. The saying ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ was coined a while ago, and neither side is true. We are not okay. A society without laws does not get better. Let me offer an example: There is a movie series called The Purge; there are several movies in the franchise, and I have watched one of them. The premise is that for one night there is no law. On this one night, you can do whatever you want without fear of the police. The movie is filled with death, pain and mayhem. This is what really happens when men cast off restraint. We unleash the evil in us. The Bible puts it this way in Romans 3:10-18:

¹⁰ As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

¹¹ There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.

¹² They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

¹³ “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit.”

“The poison of asps is under their lips.”

¹⁴ “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ Destruction and misery are in their ways;

¹⁷ And the way of peace they have not known.”

¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This is the reality of who we are without Jesus. Read it slowly; let it sink in. Let the Holy Spirit open your eyes to what mankind is like without Jesus. According to these verses, we are incapable of good works. Look at verse 12: “There is none who does good, no, not one.” Neither you nor I can do anything good. You are not okay, and neither am I.

But God has a ray of hope to offer us. When we take the Word of God seriously – when we regard it as precious, when we properly study it, read it, recall it, store it in our minds, when we submit it and regard it as powerful in our lives – we are then equipped in Jesus to do good works. But they can only be done after we have submitted to proper doctrine: God is Holy; we are not. God is good; we are not. God can save us; we need to be saved. Good works can then be done once we have begun the process of allowing God to change us. This is called sanctification or transformation; this is after we have been saved and now have the Holy Spirit living in us.

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Now, we can do good works. Now we can begin to be obedient to God. The Holy Spirit in us, and we are clothed in the righteousness of God and not in our own goodness, which the Bible tells us is no goodness at all. In Jesus, clothed in His righteousness, indwelt by His Holy Spirit and armed with the Holy Word of God, we are now capable of doing good works; and the first work is the surrender of our own bodies to the Lord. Take the time to read these verses in Romans 12: 1-2:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

We will pick up with these verses next week and discover how we can do good works in Jesus, by Jesus, and for His glory.

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca